This invention relates to management of conversations.
One application in which conversations are managed is in customer contact centers. Customer contact centers, e.g. call centers, have emerged as one of the most important and dynamic areas of the enterprise in the new economy. In today's tough economic environment, cost-effectively serving and retaining customers is of strategic importance. Most companies realize that keeping satisfied customers is less expensive than acquiring new ones. As the enterprise touch point for more than half of all customer interactions, the contact center has become a cornerstone to a successful business strategy.
The growing importance of the contact center is a recent phenomenon. Historically, customer service has been viewed by most organizations as an expensive but necessary cost of doing business, fraught with problems and inefficiencies. High call volumes regularly overwhelm under trained staff, resulting in long busy queues for customers. Inadequate information systems require most callers to repeat basic information several times. Because of this, an estimated twenty percent of shoppers abandon Web sites when faced with having to call an organization's contact center, and many more abandon calls when they encounter holding queues or frustrating menu choices. In addition, customer contact centers represent an extraordinary operating cost, consuming almost ten percent of revenues for the average business. The cost of labor dominates this expense, and the industry's extraordinarily high turnover rate results in the nonstop recruitment and training of new agents.
Unfortunately for business, the goal of ensuring cost-effective customer service is becoming more difficult. The Internet has driven an explosion in communication between organizations and their customers. Customers attach a higher value to service in the Internet economy because products and services purchased online generate a higher number of inquiries than those purchased through traditional sales channels. The contact center's role has expanded to include servicing new audiences, such as business partners, investors and even company employees. New, highly effective advertising and marketing initiatives direct customers to interact with already overburdened contact centers to obtain information. In addition to telephone calls, inquiries are now made over new Web-based text channels—including email, web-mail and chat—that place an enormous strain on customer service operations.
The combination of the growing importance of good customer service and the obstacles to delivering it make up a customer service challenge.